Planning and Enabling
Learning

This assignment will discuss the four major groups that are considered when planning and enabling learning.

The first group is Negotiating with learners; for example creating an initial assessment, agreeing goals and actions.

To negotiate with learners there is a need to make an initial assessment, this is the first step of the teacher training cycle, knowing your learners and finding your learners needs. This gives an insight to the student’s achievements and skills they already possess but will also enable assessment of ability and whether there is a need for support. There are different ways in which to make an initial assessment such as an interview, questionnaire and an application process, but assessment methods have to be fair, valid and reliable.
When agreeing your learner’s goals they should be SMART.

• Specific - what you want to achieve • Measurable - is your goal obtainable? How long will it take to complete? • Achievable - is it possible for you to meet your goals. • Realistic - is your goal real • Time bound - short term or long term goal

The second group is Inclusive learning. For instance considering the use of different delivery methods, resources and adapting session plans.

When teaching a diverse group of students from various backgrounds, cultures and with different levels of prior learning ability and expectations, inclusive learning is important. In society today we have so many resources at our disposal to enable us, the facilitator to deliver our sessions in an inclusive manner. The need for a variety of delivery methods is to engage learner’s needs and deliver to their style of learning. To enable students to learn they need to be comfortable, feel safe and be warm. When we look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs it teaches us that students have to have basic needs to learn. Level one (physiological) state’s they need oxygen food, water, sleep and homeostasis. Level two states learners need security and love. As stated by Reece and walker

The physical comfort requirements can be met by providing adequate breaks, ensuring comfort, arranging seats according to needs and being alert to heating and ventilation requirements (Reece and walker 2007: 77)

Using a learners dominate sense will keep them interested. Our sense of sight accounts for seventy five percent of what we learn; only twelve percent is what we hear. PowerPoint’s, videos, charts and pictures are just some resources that are available. They give us variety in delivery and cover learning styles with ease. It is also important to show you know what you’re delivering with verbal knowledge. There is a temptation in much new technology to overuse because it’s so versatile. This is evident in power slide presentations, where at the extreme you can become a computer operator. The overuse of sounds and effects will provide a distraction from learning rather than reinforcing it.

Session plans are blueprints of the day’s events that dictate student teacher interactions and instructional outcomes. Effective teaching usually springs from well planned, well organised and well presented lesson plans. Hoover and Hollingsworth 1975 states:

“A good lesson plan has many educational benefits, it provides teacher guidelines, allows time for teachers to motivate students to prepare for individual differences, and allow teachers to evaluate their activities and improve their teaching skills”.

The third group to be considered when planning and enabling learning is Integrating functional skills into their subject area (language, literacy, maths, ICT)

Functional skills are basic skills in English maths and ICT. They are key skills needed by learners to participate in life through learning and working. It is now a requirement for any facilitators of any specialist subject to have a minimum